SALLY QUINN’S VOODOO EXERCISE

Catalyst April Issue 2013

A recent Sally Quinn piece in the Washington Post managed to be wrong on just about every level, beginning with the Church’s “child sexual abuse scandal.” The scandal didn’t involve children—less than 5% of victims were prepubescent. Typical offenses involved “inappropriate touching” of postpubescent males. It was a homosexual scandal that ended a quarter century ago: the number of credibly accused priests over the last decade has averaged in the single digits, among a population of over 40,000. No religious or secular group can match that number.

Both as a cardinal and as pope, Benedict XVI made it harder for practicing homosexuals to enter the priesthood, the result being a sharp decline in abuse. The guilty are now either dead or laicized.

If the Catholic Church were really anti-women, as Quinn claims, then why is it that women occupy the vast majority of leadership positions in the Church?.

Furthermore, Colm Toibin’s The Testament of Mary is fiction. Why cite it as evidence for anything? And Garry Wills is no “devout Catholic;” he’s no longer Catholic. He recently said he doesn’t believe in the Eucharist. End of story.

Quinn told her parents she was an atheist at thirteen. Speaking of her upbringing, she says, “What we really believed in and practiced was voodoo, psychic phenomenon, Scottish mysticism, palm reading, astrology, séances, and ghosts.” Sounds like the voodoo really took a toll on her.